Some time ago, I think there was a proposal to change the way task
packages are put together. Instead of task-* packages, relevant packages
would have something like:
Task: programming/c
If people want the kind of flexibility described in the thread (trees,
subtrees, etc). We should look into implementing that on a package
level, and add appropriate support in dpkg / apt so that people can use
dselect / capt / aptitude -type frontends to manipulate these packages.
While I am open to suggestions for improving tasksel, making it more
complex is *not* my goal. Remember that tasksel is primarily used as
something people used when they *first* install Debian. It is not really
meant for people to incrementally install things on their system. With
this in mind:
1) I agree with joey that anything more than about one (25-line)
screenful is probably too much. There are many things that can be better
taken care of with metapackages (a la netscape). I'd go as far as saying
that language-based task packages shouldn't be treated as something you
display in tasksel, instead, we should take hints from the installer
(for example) about what language a user chooses to use for an install
(assuming an i18nized installer here...) and offer to install that *one*.
Of course, having documentation/screen messages that suggests other
packages that the user can install *after* the install process is always
a good idea.
2) Perhaps in woody, in addition to tasksel (beginner's mode) and
dselect (guru mode), we'd be able to use some apt frontend that
implements a nested hierarchical task structure as suggested by various
people in this thread.
My 2cents, as the author of tasksel ... :P
randolph
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Debian Developer <tausq@debian.org>
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